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Welcome to Venice of the North on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada. The area features fishing and logging history, a great climate, spectacular scenery, fabulous festivals, outdoor recreation, laid-back lifestyle and some of the interesting people who live here.
The small and unique neighbourhoods of Madeira Park, Kleindale, Garden Bay and Irvine’s Landing are collectively known as Pender Harbour but technically Pender Harbour is the body of water that their shores share.
Garden Bay wasn’t named for its beautiful gardens, although three are lots of those. It seems that a government surveyor, a Mr. Garden, assigned to mapping and naming the area, was either lacking in imagination or over-endowed with ego, leaving us with Garden Bay, Garden Bay Road, Garden Peninsula and Garden Bay Lake. Our federal government kept up the tradition by dedicating Garden Bay Marine Park.
According to the 2006 census, 323 of Pender Harbour's population lives in Garden Bay.
This community within a community features a grocery/general store, post office, one of three Pender Harbour government wharves, a number of marinas and Garden Bay Hotel (which is not really a hotel but a restaurant and pub— it's an old, old license, thus the misleading designation) popular for its live entertainment.
This small area is important to our history as the site of the first hospital on the Sunshine Coast, which is celebrated every August at Hospital Bay Day. The old St. Mary’s Hospital building still looks over Hospital Bay, but now as the Sundowner Inn.
Source: Pender Harbour Paper Mill
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